MONTREAL — It’s as if Sergeant Joe Friday, the fictional detective from one of television’s first police procedurals, Dragnet, had famously said, “Just the emotions, ma’am,” and as though every court reporter in town was taking him at his word.

What he actually said was, “All we want are the facts, ma’am,” which in the popular imagination then turned into “Just the facts ma’am.” And Sgt. Friday was guiding witnesses, anyway, not journalists.

But at the preliminary hearing for accused killer Luka Magnotta, the facts are verboten, thanks to the standard publication ban, which renders the evidence non-publishable, and all that is left are the considerable emotions roiling barely under the surface.

Such bans are normal at preliminary hearings across Canada, and expire only if the charges are dropped or at the end of a trial.

Magnotta is charged in the grisly murder last May of Lin Jun, a 33-year-old student from China, whose dismembered body parts turned up in the mail later in three different provinces.

In the three days since the hearing began this week, courtroom 305 has seen a grieving father (Lin’s dad, Darin) collapse and have to be helped out, and a handful of lawyers struggle themselves to contain raw feelings.

Wednesday, for instance, saw the hearing delayed several times as Magnotta’s defence team strove to deal with a potential conflict of interest issue that arose.

At one point, the team’s lead lawyer, Luc Leclair of Toronto, was almost overcome — and had to sit down — as he attempted to explain the decision he and his colleagues had reached.

After a brief recess, Leclair had collected himself, and a few minutes later was able to tell Quebec Court Judge Lori-Renee Weitzman that his young colleague, Raphael Feldstein, who is also from Toronto, was withdrawing from the case.

Leclair thanked him for “his assistance, his spirit and all the hard work he did.”

Feldstein then rose to tell the judge that “for the appearance of justice being done and not to delay this matter further,” he was indeed withdrawing.

And with that, the bag for his robes in hand and with a bear hug from the third member of Magnotta’s team, his Montreal colleague Pierre Panaccio, he took his leave.

For the record, though what led to Feldstein’s withdrawal can’t be disclosed, it should be noted even prosecutor Louis Bouthillier, who reluctantly raised what he called an “awkward” and “somewhat problematic” issue, praised the young lawyer for his ethical behavior.

That powerful emotions should flow through a high-profile case, involving such a terrible slaying, isn’t new.

For defence lawyers, such cases are filled with huge risks.

If they are sole practitioners, the rest of their practices may wither and die while they devote themselves exclusively to the client most keenly in need — usually a person like Magnotta, who if committed for trial and convicted of first-degree murder would face a life sentence.

In addition, with cases as notorious as this one, lawyer and client may come to be seen by the public as indivisible.

As an indication of that phenomenon at work, while making his near-perpetual argument for an expanded publication ban one day this week, Leclair mentioned that he had been receiving hate mail for taking on Magnotta’s defence.

That is ridiculous, of course, but then defending an alleged devil is akin to defending freedom of speech on behalf of someone whose beliefs are the very antithesis of your own: In a democracy, these are the tests that matter most.

Christie Blatchford was born in Quebec and studied journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. She has written for all four Toronto-based newspapers. She has won a National Newspaper Award for column... read more writing and in 2008 won the Governor-General’s Literary Award in non-fiction for her book Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army.View author's profile